Toledo Tar Sands Opponents Will Conduct ‘People’s Hearing’ To Counter Ohio EPA Permit for BP Refinery Expansion

From: http://gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=1690

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Keith Sadler, Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, (419) 345-6937
Kristina Moazed, Chair, Western Lake Erie Sierra Club, 419-297-7668
Terry Lodge, TCSE, (419) 829-9905


Toledo Tar Sands Opponents Will Conduct ‘People’s Hearing’
To Counter Ohio EPA Permit for BP Refinery Expansion

Opponents frustrated with the proposed refining of Canadian tar sands at the BP Husky petroleum refinery in Oregon, Ohio will convene a “people’s hearing” to protest a scheduled Ohio Environmental Protection Agency public hearing, beginning at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at Lake Erie Center, 6200 Bayshore Drive, Oregon, Ohio. The OEPA hearing begins at 6:30.

The Ohio EPA is considering issuance of a federal Clean Air Act permit for a $2.5 billion array of modifications to the refinery’s operations, which will enable the plant to create fuel from bitumen, which is gleaned from oil-bearing sands in the forests of northern Alberta, Canada.

The opponents, who call themselves the Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, include members of the Western Lake Erie Sierra Club, Occupy Toledo, the Native American Idle No More movement, Toledo Green Party and various citizens and activists. They oppose the air permit for serious public health, environmental and process reasons, and share the view that the public is allowed only a shallow role in the ultimate decision. Convinced that the damaging negative aspects of the project are not being considered, they will present a more accurate framing of the project on the public sidewalk.

“Our people's hearing on tar sands refining is not limited to narrow, technical matters. There are unconsidered major issues of energy policy. BP wants to re-tool their refining to process tar sands, the dirtiest oil on the planet, the bottom of the barrel,” said Dan Rutt of Occupy Toledo. “Three years ago, BP caused the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico - a series of criminal acts. Now, they want us to entrust Mother Earth to them, again.”

“When I read the obscure OEPA notice of their hearing, what struck me is that the words ‘tar sands’ appear nowhere,” observed Valerie Crow, Native American journalist, of the growing First Nations Idle No More movement which began in Canada. “How is the public even notified of the chance to express their opinions? But for the acts of a small but dedicated band of concerned citizens demonstrating at various BP gas stations throughout the area, no one would know what’s really at stake. Tar sands mining in Alberta violates First Nations treaties, destroys communities, pollutes water and air and is causing many cancers and other diseases to the people living nearby and downstream.”

Kristina Moazed, Chair of the Western Lake Erie Sierra Club, noted that “An area of Alberta as large as Florida is becoming a permanent wasteland that will support no life just so we can persist in the fantasy of cheap natural resources without paying the true price. We are desperately raping the Earth for ‘extreme energy,’ the last of the carbon fuel reserves. Future life on earth depends on our resistance.”

Sean Nestor, Green Party candidate for Toledo City Council, pointed out that “The permit papers and public statements by BP and OEPA suggest collusion, extending back over a decade, that the proposed project was broken up into pieces to avoid triggering of Clean Air Act regulations, which would then require measures to reduce poisonous air quality. Had these multiple modifications been packaged under one permit as federal and Ohio law require, widespread pollution of East Toledo and Oregon from tar sands might be reduced. Unless the public weighs in, global warming and human suffering from burning fossil fuels cannot be ended.”